Chancellor Woodson Officially Installed Today!!!

Campus News NC State Administration17

Randy Woodson is currently being installed and introduced, officially, as the Chancellor of our University today. There are few things going on at N.C. State of late that we should be more thankful for. Woodson is a truly remarkable man in a humble, down-to-earth shell. If you have not yet had the pleasure to interact with him, let me say that he is exactly what the doctor ordered to restore our alma mater to where it belongs… atop the list of extraordinary public land-grant higher-learning institutions.

WRAL discusses today’s ceremony briefly here, by saying:

Woodson said in April that his top priorities would be to lift the university’s national image and to bring back trust.

“The most important thing for N.C. State and for me as chancellor is to restore confidence and trust in the leadership of the institution, and the best way to do that is to do my job and to do it transparently and effectively,” Woodson said.

The “clean up” after the devastation left in the wake of scandal and corruption that plagued our University in recent years is a hell of a job for anyone to undertake. Chancellor Woodson, from all accounts so far, is the perfect man for the job.

I’d like to point you back to this entry from SFN a while back where we shared on-point information from a coach at Purdue regarding Woodson and what he meant to the people back in Indiana. If you haven’t read it, please do so. I think it will give you hope for the future of not only NC State as an overall educational institution, but also our ever blossoming athletic department in the short time Woodson has been “unofficially” on campus.

The News & Observer covers today’s news and has a great interview with our “new” Chancellor here. These exerts from the N&O interview should make you smile:

Q: What are your early impressions of the new job? Any surprises? There haven’t been a lot of surprises. The institution is so similar academically to where I came from, I feel the academic part hasn’t been a surprise. The only surprises have been positive – the strength of our faculty and students. If there is a surprise, it’s a positive one about how committed our alumni and fans are about the institution.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/26/760554/nscu-installs-chancellor-today.html#ixzz13Tdbaugs

Q: How much will your installation cost, and will it be funded publicly? It’s all private money. We’ve tried to keep it below previous installations. We’re hoping to keep it under six figures for the whole week of stuff. The bulk of expenses is associated with the installation itself, the staging and the video. We’re not doing a big campuswide lunch or celebratory thing. We’re not doingtakeaway mementos, in an attempt to reduce the cost. So we tried to focus it on the academy, the faculty…. And the football game was already scheduled. It’s on Thursday. It’s a big one – Florida State.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/26/760554/nscu-installs-chancellor-today.html#ixzz13TeeI3by

Yes, indeed it is, Chancellor. Thank you, sincerely, for understanding that. Welcome to N.C. State. Make yourself comfortable… we hope you can stay a while.

(This topic, along with the Chancellor’s new secret ice cream flavor offered by the NC State Food Science Department, is also being discussed on the Message Boards here.)

The week will undoubtedly be riddled with various opinions from media members about Chancellor Woodson’s installation and the direction of N.C.S.U. here forward. Please share any links you run across with our readers below.

On the lighter side of this exciting news, check out Page 3B of today’s print News and Observer:

This is the first-rate reporting and respect that the N & O has been providing NC State for decades!  They must have too many people trying to run down stories about our basketball players’ parking tickets to do even basic proofreading.

Campus News NC State Administration

17 Responses to Chancellor Woodson Officially Installed Today!!!

  1. YogiNC 10/26/2010 at 12:19 PM #

    Someone in the athletic dept needs to give that man a jersey, with a BIG #1 on it. He may not want the #1 from a humility standpoint, but IMO he’s already earned it.

  2. MP 10/26/2010 at 12:35 PM #

    Among the many other great things that Chancellor Woodson has had to say, this from the recent NC State Engineering magazine:

    “What I tell alumni, from engineering or from any college, is that my job is to add value to their diploma.”

    Everything about Mr. Woodson suggests that he’s not just saying it, he means it.

  3. packof81 10/26/2010 at 12:36 PM #

    I lived and worked in Indiana for a while. I came to like the Midwesterners as they called themselves. I worked with many Purdue people, definitely top notch. This guy is exactly what NC State needs.

  4. Trout 10/26/2010 at 1:10 PM #

    I went to the installation. It was a well done ceremony. Erskine did a very good job, I must admit, so did Gov Perdue. Hannah Gage is about what you would expect.

    Woodson’s speech was good. He is funny, articulate and he knows NC State already. His family has embraced North Carolina. He loves students and will be very diligent on making sure they get the best experience they can possibly get at NC State. Woodson outlined his vision – spoke of the student experience, integrating the Colleges and building support via the endowment.

    I thought the highlight was a musical number where they flashed various images of NC State on the big screen. The pictures and music went hand in hand very nicely. It was very, very, well done. Honestly, I almost cried when watching it. It told the NC State story without one spoken word. Erskine commented afterwards that it was one of the best things he had seen, and it was.

  5. burnbarn 10/26/2010 at 1:12 PM #

    what is the new ice cream flavor?

  6. GAWolf 10/26/2010 at 1:14 PM #

    Trout: Any chance that video has or will hit Youtube or the school’s website? I would LOVE to see it.

  7. GAWolf 10/26/2010 at 1:19 PM #

    If anyone catches this video online, please link it here. We’ll try to embed it above if allowed.

  8. Trout 10/26/2010 at 1:22 PM #

    http://www.ncsu.edu/installation/prepared-remarks/

    ^ Woodson’s remarks

  9. GAWolf 10/26/2010 at 1:36 PM #

    Those are some truly awesome statements. He’s just an amazing guy. I’ve talked to him now at the grocery store, at a baseball game, and at a school function and each time he spoke to me like an old friend who had my best interest at heart. He doesn’t know me from Adam’s house cat, and yet I can tell he cares about adding value to my diploma as indicated above. The same guy who wrote/spoke the words linked by Trout above could just as easily sit down and drink a beer and talk football. We haven’t had a head administrator at NC State like that in my lifetime. It’s truly an exciting time for NC State. He’s a Chancellor of the people so-to-speak, and we’re damned lucky to have him in Raleigh.

    Bring on that video.

  10. old13 10/26/2010 at 2:11 PM #

    He seems to have great promise for NCSU. And I like his style. He reminds me of John Caldwell who was Chancellor during my years at State. If Dr. Woodson is half as good as Dr. John, he will be great.

    As for the Nwes & Osberrev, well . . .

  11. LifeLongWolf 10/26/2010 at 2:23 PM #

    Ha! I read the above quickly and I thought the new ice cream flavor would be “Trout” !!!

  12. Hungwolf 10/26/2010 at 3:59 PM #

    Glad to have Dr. Woodson. He will be a great fit to lead the UNC Systems true FLAG SHIP UNIVERSITY! Congrats and Welcome!

  13. theghost 10/26/2010 at 4:51 PM #

    Is he really from Fordyce, Arkansas? Something in the water down there.

  14. bradleyb123 10/26/2010 at 6:08 PM #

    Question is, will there soon be a headline that reads “UCN installs chancellor today”

  15. GAWolf 10/27/2010 at 9:58 AM #

    Pretty cool statements from the Chancellor’s father from the N&O today:

    “What he starts, he likes to finish,” the elder Woodson said. “He’s driven, but he’s driven to do a good job. If he does something, everybody is going to know about it.”

    And he thinks his son, formerly the provost at Purdue University in Indiana, will be NCSU’s chancellor for the duration.

    “He loves it,” Herb Woodson said. “They spent 25 years in Indiana. It gets cold there, you know! He wants to finish his career [at NCSU].”

    Read more: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/ncsus-woodson-in-his-dads-eyes#ixzz13ZIghdWH

  16. StateFans 10/27/2010 at 11:28 AM #

    Great entry here. Thanks to everyone for sharing all of the coverage in one centralized spot.

    As for editing errors in ‘The Observers’….NC State is evidently playing AT Florida State on Thursday night as per the Charlotte Observer.

  17. Trout 10/27/2010 at 1:46 PM #

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z30ZRDYQOM

    Wolf Tracks ice cream is the new Chancellor’s Choice flavor.

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